Khal-Drogo, son of Bharbo

Note! I just added labels to all the Game of Thrones/ASOIAF posts-- if you want to just see those, click either of the corresponding labels on the right of the page or at the bottom of this post!

So this Game of Thrones sketch came around after watching "Valhalla Rising" on Netflix instantwatch. It's a strangely slow, beautiful, brutal movie-- pretty dark (vikings!), not much dialogue, but some really nice compositions/filmography and an intriguing main character played by Mads Mikkelsen.

I always draw ladies, and I wanted to draw an interesting-looking toughguy.
Thus: Khal Drogo! The undefeated leader of a hundred-thousand men and horses! Warrior of the plains with a be-ringed moustachio and bells braided into his long oiled hair! I mean, geez, what a description!

I originally wanted to draw Khal Drogo and Daenerys together, but this was just a spur-of-the moment drawing for practice, and I might do an actual composition with them together in the future. In any case, I still have a ways to go with digital painting! (and drawing dudes!)

Bridesmaids Movie

Hello friends!
Quick update-- this Bridesmaids illustration is in the most recent (March 28th) issue of the New Yorker. It's my first New Yorker piece, so I was pretty excited to get the assignment! The turnaround was super quick, just a couple days for everything, but the final size for this baby is only about 1.75x4.5 inches in the magazine. The movie looks really funny, (definitely watch the trailer HERE) and the illo just needed to be a lighthearted general take on it. It also challenged my ability with likenesses! Kristen Wiig is surprisingly difficult to draw!
Sketches:
(upon review, the lineup for this one reminds me of a Scooby-Doo scenario)


ALSO today I got an email from the New Yorker saying they had been contacted by Judd Apatow's assistant because Mr. Apatow wants to purchase a print of my illustration! SO COOL!! (he's the producer for Bridesmaids--and the director/writer of a million fantastic comedy movies) It really made my day, and the strange ways in which the illustration world overlaps with other areas of the universe can be so often unexpected and fun. Yay!

ART HEIST!

OH NO, EVERYONE! I went out to buy cookies and when I came back some of my priceless Vermeers, Rembrandts, Degas, and Manets were GONE!

Some were even CUT out of their frames! With a big scary knife, I bet!

The police are stumped and I've TRIED to alert the public to this disappearing act...

...but the art could have already been passed off to a shady collector in the black market...

...OR maybe it's just sitting forgotten or unsold--stashed under someone's bed or in a dark and spooky warehouse!

I guess I'll leave the empty frames up on the wall in memorium and hope that someday the art will be found again. Only my precious cookies can console me now.

And the weirdest part is, this is ACTUALLY a true story. Minus the cookies. The Isabella Stewart Gardner museum was robbed in 1990, and the 13 pieces taken still have not been found. The estimated value of the art (which includes pieces by all the artists I listed above, and more) is placed around 500 million dollars, which makes it the largest single property theft in recorded history. Crazy, right?! These spots were all done for Boston Common magazine, which ran an article revisiting the heist. It was really interesting for me to find out about it and you might also enjoy reading the article! Kudos again to Anthony Arias, who was my great AD for this project.

I also wanted to say thanks to all the kind folks who have commented on some of my recent digital painting experiments. If any of you are interested, a lot of the brushes I'm playing with have been made from some of the free brushes Bittbox gives away. You can browse through their different offerings here. Drawn also served up a great link to these free photoshop brushes being given away by Chris Wahl-- I can't wait to try them!

Indulge me

Things have been getting pretty nerd-tacular on this blog lately, and this post isn't about to change that!

I swapped some sweet photoshop brushes with Chuck Groeninkt & Sam Bosma, and I had some off time to noodle around with them. I was thinking about doing some more fanart, but I decided to hearken back to my jr. high medieval-fantasy/sci-fi roots and do some original art instead.
(The only downside to fanart is that the art doesn't really 'belong' to you in the end!)

So, here's a warrior queen & her catbeast.

I was initially inspired by these gowns & was going to do a space queen, but ended up going in a different direction. I'll draw a sci-fi lady another day!

And, for you less-medievally inclined people out there, I do have an actual magazine assignment to show you next week. It's about an art heist!

For anyone interested in me talking briefly about Game of Thrones, I have a little interview on this blog: One Cleric Short